Top Gear Live’s secret barn

Need an Evo powered Suzuki Swift? Or colour-shifting Focus RS? We know just the place to go…

Jeremy, James and Richard's Finnish replacement, Jussi, are bringing Top Gear Live to Finland this week. But how did the shows' crazy contraptions - last seen at the Birmingham NEC - come about? Dan Read went to Top Gear Live's secret barn to find out...

In a draughty barn in an English farmyard lives the weirdest collection of cars you've ever seen. Cobwebs cling to roll cages of apocalyptic Porsches, and melted number plates hang from battered Fiestas: battle scars from four years on the road with the Top Gear Live show. Every car, every wound, tells a little story, and nobody knows the life of these machines better than Rowland French, the show's creative director.